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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824684">Moonlight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalamity/pseuds/mythicalamity'>mythicalamity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rhett &amp; Link</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Curse Breaking, Description of Near Drowning, Established Relationship, Hauntober prompt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fic, Werewolf Link, Werewolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:41:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,799</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824684</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalamity/pseuds/mythicalamity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, there had been signs. Not that anyone would have ever called it obvious. No one was going to say that Rhett should’ve <i>known</i> that his partner had carried a dormant family curse of lycanthropy, aka: the potential to become an honest-to-god werewolf. That kind of thing could never be considered ‘obvious’.</p><p>But in hindsight, there were subtle dots that could now be connected.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hauntober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Moonlight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Link’s skin didn’t sizzle or hiss when the silver and iron chains touched it. Rhett wasn’t sure why he thought that it might. Just add that to the growing list of things that Rhett wasn’t so sure about these days. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Link’s uncle had warned Rhett that his reluctance to hurt Link in any way could be their downfall in their plan to break this newly uncovered Neal family curse. And as Rhett’s back slammed into the door of the shack that they had boarded themselves up inside the past few nights, Rhett began to see what Link’s uncle had meant. Link was much stronger than Rhett now, and the moment that Rhett had tried to put the chains around him, Link had lashed out and sent Rhett flying across the room with a force that knocked the wind from him. Rhett would need to be much more forceful with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, man!” Rhett cried out in frustration. Even though he knew that as the evening bled into night, and the moonlight began to shine through the cracks in their earlier attempts to shutter the windows and make their hideaway lighttight, it was becoming progressively futile to try to reason with Link. And calling him ‘man’ felt more and more like a misnomer. “This was our whole plan! You gotta let me do this!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett looked into Link’s eyes, desperate to hold onto any hint of the connection that they shared as best friends, and as life partners who had actively begun building a life together well before the romantic confessions had been exchanged, and longer still before those feelings had been physically consummated. It broke Rhett’s heart that the eyes that he was locked with looked like those of a stranger. Of a monster. Link’s smoldering eyes glowed an orangey-yellow, like amber tree resin that had been set on fire. They were so foreign in contrast to the refreshingly cool, icy blue eyes that Rhett had grown accustomed to drinking in his entire life. But Rhett’s heartache only fueled his determination to succeed with the mission they’d planned together when the moon was not so full, and Link was more himself. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(One month prior...)</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>In retrospect, there had been signs. Not that anyone would have ever called it obvious. No one was going to say that Rhett should’ve </span>
  </em>
  <span>known</span>
  <em>
    <span> that his partner had carried a dormant family curse of lycanthropy, aka: the potential to become an honest-to-god </span>
  </em>
  <span>werewolf</span>
  <em>
    <span>. That kind of thing could never be considered ‘obvious’. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But in hindsight, there were subtle dots that could now be connected. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Link had always been furry. Rhett’s dad had had to coach Link through managing his overgrown unibrow, and shaving at an earlier age. Even once he’d mastered that, Link had found himself obsessing over body hair and how to groom it in a way that made him feel traditionally manly but not to the point that he felt beastly. So he shaved and tweezed more than most people had to, to get himself looking the way that he wanted to be seen. Rhett hadn’t even understood the full range of manscaping until they lived together and he was able to witness the entire range of the whole… body hair management routine.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But a lot of guys were hairier than Rhett. And Rhett had recalled Link’s biological father was a hairy dude as well; and according to Link, that was true of most men on the Neal side of the family. It was a trait that seemed to annoy Link, but Rhett never would have considered it monstrous.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Link also trimmed his fingernails and toenails daily. One time they had gone camping for a long weekend and Link had forgotten his nail clippers at home. When Link had been beside himself anxious over not having them, Rhett thought that Link was just being irrationally anal about his grooming routine being disrupted. After all, Link could get that way sometimes. Rhett encouraged him to just relax and let some of the routines slide for a few days. Link had seemed uncomfortable with that suggestion, but he said that he would try. The next night, Link inadvertently demonstrated that the nail trimming was more than ritualistic when they shared a sleeping bag together,  and Link scratched up Rhett’s legs with his toenails. With less than 36 hrs of growth… Link had been mortified by his long toenails, and Rhett had felt guilty for encouraging Link to put himself in this position. Rhett had helped Link into a pair of thick socks to cover up his feet, and promised to drive him into town in the morning so he could get whatever he needed. It was definitely odd. But Rhett didn’t bring it up again - he didn’t want Link feeling more self-conscious about his body than he already did.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There were even clues in his picky eating. Link had been raised to not be an adventurous eater. His Nana always coached him toward believing that bland foods were the safest. When she couldn’t stand to watch Link and Rhett eating exotic foods on GMM, and scolded Link over the phone particularly over their dabbling in organ meat… They both had attributed her displeasure to her just being a crotchety old lady. Only in hindsight were Rhett and Link putting it together that she had tried to prime Link to not fall in love with daring eating practices as a way to protect him from activating his latent family curse. She never could never have predicted that her grandbaby would wind up losing a round of a silly game on a silly internet show, and taking a punishment of eating wolf brains for clicks. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Things changed very quickly after that punishment.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Link began to have strange cravings. He began to get irritable, and became insatiable when it came to red meat. Rare meat. To the point that Rhett couldn’t even watch him eat it. Rhett had taken to going for long walks in the evenings. He had told Link that he needed alone time to clear his head, but the truth was that he needed time away from Link when Link was eating. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>One night, Rhett came home from one of his long walks. He was growing concerned for Link, and was using tonight’s bout of alone time to figure out how best to suggest to Link that he might need some kind of medical or otherwise professional help. When he got back home he found the place completely trashed. And that was the first time that Rhett met Link’s honey-colored eyes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Rhett was at a loss for what to do. So he did what he’d always done when he needed help with Link, ever since he was a little boy. , when he needed help with Link. He called Mama Sue. And Rhett was shocked as she did something that she had never - not even once - done when they had been boys: she directed Rhett to Charles. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The plot thickened as Charles connected Rhett and Link with Link’s uncle, who apparently had also activated his family curse by doing some creative cooking on a wilderness trip. His uncle had taken many solo wilderness trips, by nature a solitary man who enjoyed isolating himself in nature more than most. Once he had activated his curse, he had a very good reason to do so each month. Link’s uncle confirmed that each month with the full moon, he transformed into a werewolf: fur, teeth, claws, and all. He had taken it beyond the monthly retreat coinciding with the full moon, his uncle had chosen to essentially disown himself from his family and friends. He had hoped to live out his days alone in the remote hills of North Carolina. He had built various hideaway structures for himself, and had perfected ways to keep himself locked up and safe from civilization. With very few slip ups. Enough that he could live with it. He had made peace with his curse as a part of who he was.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>But that was not the life that Link saw for himself. For himself and Rhett. While it was true that Link was no social butterfly, he loved Rhett. He loved their coworkers and employees. They had built a family of friends out in LA. Link had struggled for his entire life, within himself and with the people that loved him, to not have to hide any part of who he was. At this point in his life he treasured the people that loved him in all his quareness and queerness. He hated the idea of having some new part of himself that he had to lock away. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It turned out, there was a way to break the curse. Link’s uncle described the process to Link and Rhett. You weakened the curse with iron or silver, and then submerged the creature completely in a body of water under the moonlight. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It was that simple...</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhett had managed to Link pin to the floor, and Link was struggling against him with all the animalistic strength he had acquired. He was growling, the growls bordering on howls and snarls. Spittle flew freely from his mouth. His mouth had elongated into a snout full of jagged teeth. His wild amber eyes were glowing with rage, like caution lights that should have sent Rhett running far from the beast beneath him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett managed to get the chains locked around Link. He cringed as he watched Link struggle in them, knowing how tender and bruised the body of the man within the hairy beast would likely feel when they were successful. (Rhett could barely let himself think of what would happen if they failed.) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett was confident that the chains would hold, and he’d wedged a cord of rope between Link’s teeth, which had become like rows of shattered glass protruding from his elongated maw. Link, or the animal that had possessed him - Rhett refused to see as </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> Link - was rendered helpless. And the frightened and angry look in its shining eyes let Rhett know that the monster knew it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett was more afraid of what came next. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Rhett drove them out toward the Cape Fear River. He carried Link’s fur-covered body out to the bank, bound and writhing in his arms. Earlier in the week, they had set up a tether so that the current wouldn’t drag Link away, unable to swim in the chains. Rhett double, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>triple</span>
  </em>
  <span> checked the integrity of its hold. The river had tried to drown Link before, under less complicated circumstances: as kids, he once got his foot wedged between rocks and barely got up for air in time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If this worked, and once submerged in the body of water under the moonlight Link’s curse was broken, Rhett would drag him up and free him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If it didn’t work, Rhett didn’t know what he would do. They hadn’t openly discussed it, because Rhett knew that Link would have told him to leave him in the river. And Rhett also knew that he would never do that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d take the creature back to the shack, dogsit until the full moon passed, and then commit to a life of keeping Link safe, and keeping others safe from him - each month for as long as they both shall live... He’d say goodbye to romantic moonlit strolls. When’s the last time they’d taken a ‘romantic moonlit stroll’ anyway? Rhett would do it, to help Link live that way. But he knew such an existence would devastate Link. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This </span>
  <em>
    <span>had to</span>
  </em>
  <span> work. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett’s arms ached and trembled under Link’s deceptive mass. He looked down at the savage creature in his arms, its eyes unrecognizable, its fur matted and wild, its teeth sharp and terrible. Despite everything, Rhett knew that this Link. The only body that he ever wanted to hold, the only eyes he would lose himself in, and only lips that he had ever wanted on his own. As different as he was now, none of that had changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you, Link,” Rhett told the snarling creature as he approached the water’s edge. He couldn’t kiss him now, but he tried like hell to project his love past the monster that had imprisoned the man that he loved, and make the man at its core feel it. “If </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> remains a part of you…” His chest tightened and his heart sank into his gut. “Then I will find love there, too. I will always love </span>
  <em>
    <span>every </span>
  </em>
  <span>part of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just then the moon revealed itself from behind a cloud and lit up the river like dim stage light. Rhett lowered the restrained, scared animal into the river, and prayed that the waters remained calm and unthreatening. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature writhed and flailed beneath the water, it struggled against its bindings and seemed to cringe away from the refracted moonlight as it shone through the river water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett’s heart ached for the man within the animal. He didn’t know how long he was supposed to wait. Neither Link nor the beast had gills, and Rhett knew that there was no way that drowning was what Link’s uncle had meant by ‘freeing him from the curse’. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was no timer that would </span>
  <em>
    <span>ding</span>
  </em>
  <span> if, or when, the thing had been accomplished. Just as Rhett was beginning to lose his nerve, and drag the monster back up from the water regardless of the result, the shape in the river went still. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was either very good, or very bad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, the body began to struggle again, less violently but with all the same urgency. Rhett could hear a higher pitched scream bubbling up from the surface. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Link.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett hauled him back up and heaved his body from the water. Rhett quickly removed the rope from Link’s mouth, not wanting to obstruct Link trying to catch his breath. Link’s eyes remained squeezed shut as he coughed and spit up river water with a force that made Rhett’s lungs burn with sympathy. Rhett could barely hold the keys in his shaky fingers as he freed Link’s shivering body from the chains. Link’s pale skin in the moonlight was already showing signs of bruising from fighting so fiercely against the restraints. Rhett imagined that Link would only ache more as the bruises bloomed; to say nothing of how his body would ‘bounce back’ from the physical transformation. What must something like that do to a person’s body?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett sank to his knees and cuddled Link into his arms. He held him until his trembling settled, and his breathing began to even. Rhett didn’t want to hold him too tightly, because he knew he must be sore all over. But it was hard for him to hold back, Rhett didn’t want to feel Link slip from his grip ever again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments, Link had soothed enough that he opened his eyes. Starlit blue eyes searched out Rhett’s, and the hint of a smile twitched at the smaller man’s lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Link spoke, his voice was raw and cracked. “You… did… it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears welled up in Rhett’s eyes as he immediately corrected him. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>We </span>
  </em>
  <span>did it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Link seemed too weak to argue over who’d be getting the credit for tonight’s feat, both silently agreeing that the important thing was that they had succeeded. That they would have countless peaceful years of months ahead to bask together in the full moon’s glow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett slipped off his backpack and pulled out the soft sweatpants and hoodie that he’d brought for Link, as the creature had ripped Link’s clothes as completely as he’d torn Link’s muscles from within. Making his outsides more comfortable was the easy part. Rhett knew that they had some long nights ahead of them, making Link feel whole and human and safe again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett cradled Link in his arms, as gingerly as he’d hold a newborn baby. He set Link gently into the car, and lovingly fastened his seatbelt. Rhett had barely started driving when he looked over to see Link asleep. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Rhett thought to himself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Let the healing begin.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett’s eyes were on the road, but his mind was on all of the ways that he looked forward to helping Link recover. He wanted to take Link back to LA. He wanted to bathe his body, and massage his aches away. He wanted to feed and comfort him. Wrap him in blankets and hold him as he slept; unwrap him and make love to him to help him feel whole, human, and cherished. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rhett would help Link to put himself back together, body and soul; and then they would fearlessly walk together side by side under any sun or moon for the rest of their lives. </span>
</p>
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